Half Moon Bay Brewing Company presents Brews & Views on April 4th

Free public forum welcomes activist, author and professor Aaron Belkin
for a discussion about the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
with Lenny Mendonca, director at McKinsey & Company
and founder of the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company

What:
The repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a very important moment in United States history that holds many lessons about the ability to change public opinion and ultimately government policies. For the next Brews and Views on April 4, the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company is honored to welcome Aaron Belkin, Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University and author of “How We Won: Progressive Lessons From the Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’” Belkin will be joined by Lenny Mendonca, director of global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company and Founder of the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, in a discussion that will explore what this milestone means in terms of progressive lessons in the United States.

Reservations and Tickets:
Admission and snacks are complimentary. Beer, wine and other beverages will be available for sale at the event. Ten percent of the proceeds from all dinner sales at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for this event will be donated to the Cabrillo Education Foundation.

For More Information:
Call 650-728-BREW (2739) or visit www.hmbbrewingco.com.

Speaker Biography:

Aaron Belkin is a scholar, author, activist and dancer. He has written and edited more than 25 scholarly articles, chapters and books, the most recent of which is a study of contradictions in American warrior masculinity and the ways in which smoothing over those contradictions makes the U.S. empire seem unproblematic. The book, titled “Bring Me Men” was published by Columbia University Press in 2012.
Since 1999, Belkin has served as founding director of the Palm Center, which the Advocate named as one of the most effective gay rights organizations in the nation. He designed and implemented much of the public education campaign that eroded popular support for military anti-gay discrimination, and when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed, the president of the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund observed that, “this day never would have arrived (or it would have been a much longer wait) without the persistent, grinding work of the Michael Palm Center.” Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley said of Belkin that, “Probably no single person deserves more credit for the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

As Palm’s director, Belkin crafted a novel strategic model for using social science research to shape public opinion, a model that he describes in his 2011 e-book, “How We Won.” Arianna Huffington describes that book as a “best practices guide for civil rights fights going forward” and adds that, “if you care about changing America, read ‘How We Won.’” Belkin has provided pro-bono strategic advice, based on his model, to numerous foundations and non-profit organizations.
His awards include the Freedom Award from Beth Chayim Chadashim, the oldest LGBT synagogue in the world, and the Monette-Horwitz Award from the estate of National Book Award Winner Paul Monette. In 2011, he was a Grand Marshal in San Francisco’s LGBT Pride Parade.
Belkin serves as professor of political science at San Francisco State University, where he teaches a lecture course to 700 undergraduates on delusion and paranoia in American politics. Prior to his arrival at State, he was an associate professor of political science at University of California, Santa Barbara and an associate professor of psychology at City University of New York. He earned his B.A. in international relations at Brown University in 1988 and his Ph.D in political science at the University of California, Berkeley in 1998.
Belkin takes daily dance classes at the Rhythm & Motion school in San Francisco, and blogs for the Huffington Post.
Moderator Biography:
Lenny Mendonca is a director (senior partner) in the Washington D.C. and San Francisco offices of McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm.
Lenny is currently the leader of McKinsey’s U.S. state and local public sector practice. For many years Lenny led the Firm’s knowledge development efforts overseeing the McKinsey Global Institute and the Firm’s communications, which includes the McKinsey Quarterly, and has served for a decade on the McKinsey Shareholder Council (its board of directors). His client work focuses on service to public sector organizations, and over the course of his career he has helped dozens of government, corporate, and nonprofit clients solve their most difficult management challenges.

Lenny is the Chairman Emeritus of the Bay Area Council and the Economic Institute of the Bay Area, and was vice-chair of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council. He serves on the boards of The New America Foundation, The Committee for Economic Development, Common Cause, the Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium, and The California Business for Educational Excellence Foundation. He is Chairman of Children Now, and he is co-Chairman of California Forward. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and founder and chairman of Fuse Corps.

He received his MBA and certificate in public management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He holds an AB, magna cum laude, in economics from Harvard College.

Lenny lives on the Half Moon Bay coast, south of San Francisco, with his wife and two daughters, where he is the founder and owner of the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company.

ABOUT BREWS & VIEWS

Brews and Views is the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company’s regular speakers series that tackles public issues that affect us all, from the Coastside of California to Washington, DC. Started in 2009 by Lenny Mendonca, the founder of the Brewing Company and director at McKinsey & Company, Brews and Views serves as both a free public forum and fundraiser for Coastside nonprofit organizations (ten percent of all dinner proceeds are donated to a local nonprofit after each event). Previous notable guests include renowned forecaster Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight at Discern Analytics; Charles Kolb, president of the Committee for Economic Development; Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton; Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle’s political reporter; and California State Assemblyman Jerry Hill.

Previous Brews and Views are playing as a series on local television station, PCTV on Channel 27, Monday nights at 7pm. For additional videos, visit HMB Media at http://www.youtube.com/user/HMBMediaProductions

ABOUT THE HALF MOON BAY BREWING COMPANY
Recently selected by Men’s Fitness as one of America’s Top Ten Craft Breweries and by Travel + Leisure magazine as one of America’s Best Beach Bars, the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company is situated on picturesque Pillar Point Harbor overlooking the Marina in Princeton-by-the Sea. The Brewing Company expertly pairs a family-friendly, come-as-you-are atmosphere with a winning combination of fresh, sustainable seafood, craft beers, live music and an expansive, dog-friendly patio area with blazing fire pits to keep patrons warm on the waterfront. The Brewing Company is a casual coastal venue that has become an institution in the Half Moon Bay area for locals and visitors alike since opening in 2000. With its warm, wood-toned interior, expansive windows to the ocean, and walls dotted with surf memorabilia, the 6,000-square-foot restaurant and bar is reminiscent of a typical California surf shack. Behind the restaurant lie the 1,200 square-foot Mavericks Beer Garden and on-site brewery, where hand-crafted, award-winning Mavericks® Beers & Ales are piped directly to the bar. The Mavericks Amber Ale won a bronze medal in the 2012 World Beer Cup.

The Half Moon Bay Brewing Company is located at 390 Capistrano Road in Princeton-by-the-Sea, Calif. The hours of operation are Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to close; Friday, 11:30 a.m. to close; Saturdays and Sundays starting March 16, 9:00 a.m. to close. To book a reservation, please call 650-728-BREW (2739) or visit OpenTable.com. Additional information may be found at www.hmbbrewingco.com.

Saturday NightIncreasing clouds, with a low around 48. WNW wind 11 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph.

SundayA 30% chance of showers, mainly before 11am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 56. Breezy, with a west wind 17 to 22 mph decreasing to 11 to 16 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 29 mph. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

Sunday NightMostly cloudy, with a low around 48. West wind 8 to 10 mph.